arried when the
bank broke; and among his friends her wretched husband appears to have
forged the names of the trustees to her marriage settlement, and sold
out the sums which would otherwise have served her as a competence.
Her father, too, was a great sufferer by the bankruptcy, having by
his son-in-law's advice placed a considerable portion of his moderate
fortune in Alfred's hands for investment, all of which was involved in
the general wreck. I am afraid he was a very hard-hearted man: at all
events his poor daughter never returned to him. She died, I think, even
before the death of Bertram Fletwode. The whole story is very dismal."

"Dismal indeed, but pregnant with salutary warnings to those who live
in an age of progress. Here you see a family of fair fortune, living
hospitably, beloved, revered, more looked up to by their neighbours than
the wealthiest nobles; no family not proud to boast alliance with it.
All at once, in the tranquil record of this happy race, appears that
darling of the age, that hero of progress,--a clever man of business. He
be contented to live as his fathers! He be contented with such trifles
as competence, respect, and love! Much too clever for that. The age is
money-making,--go with the age! He goes with the age. Born a gentleman
only, he exalts himself into a trader. But at least he, it seems, if
greedy, was not dishonest. He was born a gentleman, but his son was
born a trader. The son is a still cleverer man of business; the son is
consulted and trusted. Aha! He too goes with the age; to greed he
links ambition. The trader's son wishes to return--what? to the rank of
gentleman?--gentleman! nonsense! everybody is a gentleman nowadays,--to
the title of Lord. How ends it all! Could I sit but for twelve hours in
the innermost heart of that Alfred Fletwode; could I see how, step by
step from his childhood, the dishonest son was avariciously led on by
the honest father to depart from the old _vestigia_ of Fletwodes of
Fletwode,--scorning The Enough to covet The More, gaining The More to
sigh, 'It is not The Enough,'--I think I might show that the age lives
in a house of glass, and had better not for its own sake throw stones on
the felon!"

"Ah, but, Mr. Chillingly, surely this is a very rare exception in the
general--"

"Rare!" interrupted Kenelm, who was excited to a warmth of passion which
would have startled his most intimate friend,-if indeed an intimate
friend had ever been vouchsa